I Remember and I Smile

Millions of moments, just moments accrue to all of us in our lifetime.

An unexceptional occurrence, just a moment from my past that made me smile then and still does today. A happy time.

Today is Sunday, a day that most men and boys in America celebrate by watching professional football. My Sundays for quite a while were no different. Our favorite team then was the Washington Redskins for the unexceptional reason that we lived in the Washington vicinity, Alexandria, Virginia to be exact. My son Michael who had attained the age of maybe ten joined me in rooting for a team that was just then turning the corner from a bad team to a very good team. It was the time of coaches like Vince Lombardi, George Allen, and Joe Gibbs. Players of the caliber of Sonny Jurgenson, Billy Kilmer, and John Riggins.

We lived in a 'garden' apartment off the Mt. Vernon Parkway located between Alexandria and Mount Vernon. A location where my wife and I concur was our 'happiest place'. Down the street was the usual drugstore. It was either a Drug Fair or a Peoples drug, I can't remember which. where one day Mike was running an errand for his mother. You really could in those days send a young boy on an errand and be confident that he would not be kidnapped or that something equally as bad would befall him. But the next thing his mom heard was Mike flying into the apartment reporting news that he could not believe. It was too unbelievable and the news didn't take long to spill itself out. One of the Washington Redskins lived in our vicinity and Mike spotted him in the drug store. What he was buying left Mike in a small state of shock. Chris Hanburger, a big Redskin lineman was standing in the checkout line with a package of cigarettes and a package of pink rubber gloves. He was very quick to report to his mom that they were certainly for his wife. Hanburger remained one of Mike's favorites but thinking that he perhaps had feet of clay like the rest of us mortals made him think a little more I am sure.